Those Wild Things On Toy Shelf Are Familiar Faces In Literature

November 9, 1985|By Nancy Pate of The Sentinel Staff

Thirty-five years ago, a young man from Brooklyn showed up at New York City's F.A.O. Schwarz toy store with six mechanical wooden toys that he and his brother had built. The store didn't want the toys, but it did offer the young man a job working on its window displays. While he was working at the store and taking art classes at night, he met an editor from Harper & Row who asked him to illustrate a children's book.

That was the beginning of Maurice Sendak's career as an award-winning children's book illustrator and author. That career now has come full circle: Sendak toys are at F.A.O. Schwarz and at hundreds of other toy stores and bookstores across the country.

These aren't mechanical wooden toys but rather plush-and-rag Wild Things Dolls based on four characters from Sendak's most famous book, Where the Wild Things Are.

Just what is a Wild Thing?

In Sendak's book, which won the 1964 Caldecott Medal as best-illustrated children's book of the year, a little boy named Max dresses up in a wolf suit and makes so much mischief that his mother calls him ''Wild Thing'' and sends him to his room without supper.

A forest grows in Max's room, and he boards a boat that carries him to a place where the Wild Things are -- hairy, fanged creatures with terrible claws and ugly tusks. Max tames the Wild Things by staring into their yellow eyes, and they proclaim him their king.

''People don't remember now, but it was a very controversial book when it first came out,'' said Carolyn Peterson, head of the children's department at the Orlando Public Library. ''It was supposed to be too frightening for young children. Obviously it's not -- we must own 200 copies at the library and there are maybe two on the shelf at any given time.''

The four Wild Things dolls, made by Determined Productions for Harper & Row, Sendak's publisher, include mischievous Max in his white wolf suit and three of the creatures he tames in the story. They are ugly but lovable beasts, each about a foot tall, and each readily recognizable from Sendak's original illustrations. Wild Thing No. 1 has an orange-and-yellow striped body, bushy black hair and a bulbous pink nose. No. 2 has woolly blue fur and curving horns, and No. 3 has orange yarn hair and a wistful expression.

''The idea was that children could name them whatever they wanted,'' said Jim Murphy, Harper & Row trade sales representative. ''They're pretty unique, and they're selling very, very well.''

''I've sold eight out of a dozen in less than two weeks,'' said Andy Snyder, manager of Canterbury Books in downtown Orlando. ''It's real word-of- mouth. Once someone sees one that somebody has bought, they have to come get one for themselves. I'm reordering and will at least double my original order.''

This is the second time that Harper & Row has tried out Sendak dolls based on the Wild Thing characters.

''The others came out seven or eight years ago and only received a very limited distribution, mostly at toy stores,'' said Joan Robins, director of publicity for Harper Junior Books. ''They were much larger and much more expensive. These are quite different and are priced to sell at between $13 and $15. We're also really marketing them to the bookstores because of the natural association with the book.''

Dolls and toys based on book characters are nothing new; Winnie-the-Pooh and Raggedy Ann have been longtime favorites. But the marketing of the Sendak dolls bucks a recent trend in which licensed characters such as Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and Cabbage Patch Dolls have been manufactured as toys before they have appeared in books.

Those toys are aimed at the juvenile set, but Robins said she expects that many adults will also want Wild Things -- ''librarians, schoolteachers, not to mention all those people who read the book as a kid. They may say they're buying it for a child, but I imagine plenty will keep it for themselves.''

Just ask Canterbury's Snyder, who bought a Wild Thing for his 15-month- old daughter.